Subject: bug#49424: 27.2; Misdocumented default initialisation file

From: Robert Pluim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:08:21 +0200

>>>>> On Thu, 08 Jul 2021 00:24:22 +1200, Phil Sainty <[email-masked]> said:

    Phil> On 2021-07-07 21:17, Robert Pluim wrote:
    >> If nothing exists, Emacs will create ~/.emacs.d, and use ~/.emacs as
    >> as the init file. We can change that to use ~/.emacs.d/init.el if we
    >> want, people who already have init files will not be affected.
    >> </bold prediction of there being no consequences>

    Phil> I know of people who have ~/.emacs.d under version control (used on
    Phil> multiple machines), and on some machines additionally have a ~/.emacs
    Phil> file for config which is local to that particular machine.  The .emacs
    Phil> file simply loads the init.el file.

Thatʼs a different branch of the startup logic :-)

If we change things so that ~/.emacs.d/init.el is used only if there
is no .emacs, they would not be affected. I think this is already
the case, but I may be misremembering

    Phil> There are other ways of achieving the same thing; but I thought this
    Phil> one was quite a neat approach when I heard it.

    Phil> In other words, FYI some people's configs are definitely reliant on
    Phil> the current precedence order.

    Phil> In any case, while the sequence *could* be changed for those two
    Phil> files, I don't think there's any notable benefit to doing so?  Even
    Phil> ignoring cases like the one above, that change would undoubtedly
    Phil> cause some confusion for no good reason.

Iʼm not proposing changing the sequence, only what happens in the case
where there are no init files at all. It would eliminate the 'why is
emacs creating .emacs.d but then not using it' confusion.

Robert
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